


Attention

by GretchenSinister



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Getting Together, Love Confessions, M/M, prepare for trouble and make it double!, wait. I mean show A & C meet book A & C
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-20
Updated: 2019-12-20
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:14:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21868087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GretchenSinister/pseuds/GretchenSinister
Summary: After the end of the world that wasn't, show!Aziraphale and Crowley unexpectedly meet their book counterparts at St. James' Park. Show!Aziraphale realizes he has something important to tell himself, and also something important to do.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 49





	Attention

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Emerald Embers (emeraldembers)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/emeraldembers/gifts).



> I was given a similar, but not identical, prompt for Emerald Ember's birthday present back in June. It has morphed into a Christmas present and something else entirely. I hope it still suffices.

“I think perhaps we’d better take a walk round the other side of the lake,” Aziraphale said. He was peering rather intently at something, or maybe someone, across the water. Crowley could hardly tell. Inherent snakiness meant that his long-distance vision was never going to be worth much (he’d never pass a driving test honestly, if he’d ever bothered to take one). Most of the time it didn’t concern him. Plants were close up, picking out clothes and sunglasses and phones and things to look cool in were close up, and though he hardly needed to see Aziraphale to be aware of him…and though he didn’t want to push his luck…it seemed very possible that Aziraphale was going to be much more regularly close up.

And that possibility was what made whatever Aziraphale was staring at relevant to Crowley. This was a delicate time, wasn’t it? Aziraphale’s attention was the critical element right now. He couldn’t know how to draw it back to himself if he wasn’t fully aware of what had drawn it away.

“Might as well,” Crowley said, casting an indifferent look in the same direction as Aziraphale. He didn’t see anything particularly noteworthy, just another pair of figures in overcoats likely to be clandestinely feeding the ducks, but he didn’t say this. There was something in Aziraphale’s look that made him think that he would not look cooly indifferent if he admitted he didn’t see anything special over there, but rather astoundingly unobservant. So he deferred to whatever the distance vision of someone still expected to fly had detected, and sauntered along the path next to Aziraphale, thinking idly of how terrible it was to be unobserved and how even subatomic particles understood that and what exactly did it mean to be entangled and did paired particles have any thoughts about that state and did the distance bother them when they demonstrated spooky action at a distance—

And then his metaphysical senses were woken up by a sensation as sharp and unmistakable as biting into a frozen lemon slice. He and Aziraphale were nearing _another_ angel and demon. Crowley’s walk wobbled a little, but not to a hugely outlying extent, he hoped. He had to play this cool! How could he have missed it? It was a matter of existence vs. oblivion to be aware of other angels and demons in the vicinity, and yes he had been focusing on Aziraphale, but 6000 years of vigilance didn’t go away _that_ easily, did they? Could they?

But then maybe he hadn’t noticed the presence of this other angel and demon because they were, well…(biting into a completely foreign citrus fruit this time)…too familiar to notice.

“Is this part of setting everything right, then?” Aziraphale said—the _other_ Aziraphale. His overcoat was tartan, and he looked a bit older than the Aziraphale at Crowley’s side, but there was absolutely no doubt that this was Aziraphale again. The situation smacked of Larger Forces and Crowley wanted nothing more than to take his (well, there wasn’t any simpler way of distinguishing them, was there?) Aziraphale by the shoulders and hurry him off to somewhere far away from this pair, such as Madagascar or the moon.

Unfortunately his Aziraphale looked much more curious than sensibly alarmed.

“I certainly hope so,” his Aziraphale replied. “If it isn’t, I would hazard that we’re really in a lot of trouble.”

The other Aziraphale nodded, a wary look on his face. “Well, I could hardly claim to be surprised about _that_. It’s been almost more worrying that nothing’s been done so far.”

“Nothing?” Crowley interjected. “You haven’t been called back at all?” He couldn’t glare at the other Aziraphale, because this wasn’t something Aziraphale would lie about, but he could glare at himself, just on general principles.

It didn’t end up being a very good glare (thankfully, his sunglasses concealed the quality) because he’d been assuming that the other version of him was just going to be a copy, maybe a little older like the other Aziraphale. This was incorrect. The other Crowley looked significantly younger than him, and, even worse, somehow simultaneously cooler and also twenty years out of date. It was completely mortifying, and worse, he knew the other Crowley was probably feeling the same way he was.

“Nothing,” the other Crowley confirmed, in a voice that would have made Crowley want to plug his ears and grind his teeth, save for the fact that he’d heard something like it when he’d made his ansaphone recording some years ago. It sounded wrong, but it really was his voice. It was still rather horrible to hear live like this, but he could manage not to react. “Everything’s just the way it was before. Bentley, bookshop, the works.”

“And both of you, as well?” the younger-looking Aziraphale said, looking thoughtfully at the other pair. “Just the same as it always was?”

“Why wouldn’t it be?” the other Crowley said.

“Yes,” the other Aziraphale said, after a short pause. “There is a certain new level of freedom I suspect both of us feel, now, but I hardly think there’s any pressing reason to alter the Arrangement.”

Crowley glanced at his Aziraphale at that, and noticed the other Crowley doing the exact same thing. _We’re chumps_ , he thought. _We’re absolute chumps and cowards and we will go on being chumps and cowards to the heat death of the universe because we can’t stand the thought of being separated from beings who insist that tartan is fashionable and yet have been the only ones worth getting drunk with from the creation of yeast to the invention of whiskey pods._

But his Aziraphale sharply raised his eyebrows at the other’s comment. “Perhaps,” he said carefully. “Do you share my tastes, I wonder? Your lovely coat suggests it, so—do you care for sushi? Fine wines? Do you seek out little unique restaurants just out of curiosity and the hope that you might discover something new and delightful? Do you enjoy experiencing the good things that are only on Earth?”

“Yes, all that’s true” said the other Aziraphale, warily.

“Then—” his Aziraphale flexed his hands nervously, as if he was about to attempt a magic trick, which Crowley hoped he wasn’t, as it didn’t seem to match whatever tone was developing here. Then again, he was also starting to feel like maybe he’d missed some important information. So who knew? “If this is all part of setting things right,” his Aziraphale went on, “then maybe we had to meet each other like this. Because if you both were never called back, you don’t know what you’d do for—what I mean to say is—” He took a deep breath and looked the other Aziraphale dead in the eye. “If the same things happened to you as happened to me, then you remember how Tadfield felt because of Adam’s love for it. You can sense love. You can sense all kinds of love. And there’s no rule for anything you have to _do_ , but—but maybe what I have to say to you is _pay attention to what you’re sensing_.”

And then he reached out and took Crowley’s hand, which stunned him, and then he drew Crowley close and gently kissed him on the mouth, which left him speechless, which was probably for the best at that moment. His mind flooded with contradictory emotions—fear brought on by the fact that they were kissing right out in the open in front of everybody— _Everybody_ everybody—utter bewilderment at the fact that his careful plans for the next decade or so had apparently become moot, rising panic at the sudden remembrance that he did not actually know how to kiss anyone, and, slowly rising over all the rest, a pure happiness that Aziraphale was holding him, was kissing him. And it wasn’t just for charity, because he loved Aziraphale and Aziraphale was going above and beyond in niceness. He’d had to know, of course, and so he’d let down just a small portion of his metaphysical defenses to feel what Aziraphale was sending towards him (always a bad idea around any demons, where the best reaction he got was generally cold contempt). And what he felt was angelic love, so clean and warm it seemed like it should burn, but, maybe—maybe he’d unknowingly been building up the necessary exposure tolerance to it for some time. He’d have to ask Aziraphale, if they ever stopped kissing. He was prepared to wait quite some time for an answer.

He dared to wrap his arms around Aziraphale, which felt so nice he forgot for a moment exactly what kind of tongue he ought to have. _This_ prompted a slight, but noticeable change in the love he was sensing from Aziraphale, and, well, in such a moment it was completely understandable that neither of them actually saw their counterparts leave. But this is what happened:

“You know,” said the Aziraphale in full tartan, as he gazed at the other pair, “I do believe I may have had a rather good point.”

“Ngk,” said Crowley.

And then they were gone, back to wherever they were from, both considering that, with a little effort, perhaps a world that had been set to rights could, in fact, be made even better.


End file.
